Clean Design Tips: How To Pick Icons and Text, And Keep Them Consistent

Consistency in web and graphic design allows you to establish a brand and deliver your message properly giving you credibility.

The human mind is hardwired to need consistency. This is so because spotting patterns within something consistent is the only way in which we can predict and hence control the future – and in other words, what happens to us.

For our mind, consistency is a safety mechanism developed millions of years ago, so we perceive the lack of it as plain wrong. That’s why our brain perceives the lack of consistency as annoying, uncomfortable and disturbing.

This concept, as it’s ingrained on our most basic psychology, also applies to design. Consistency in web and graphic design allows you to establish a brand, maintain and deliver your message properly and gives you credibility.

A big part of consistency in design is picking the right fonts and the right icons, sticking with them, and leveraging the most of both.

Let’s start then!

3 Tips For Selecting The Right Fonts

Usually, every infographic opens with a big, bold attracting headline, so we are going to start with fonts!

As we mentioned in an older post, typeface establishes the all-important first impression – it defines content purpose and brand identity. Therefore, it’s extremely important to get it right! After a delightful chat with Piktochart’s design team, I discovered some interesting tips for you:

1. Set the mood It’s important to understand the topic and set a mood to it. The header font normally sets the whole mood to the design, so be sure to fully understand the content, 101% of it.

2. Be simple Once you pick a header font, don’t over do it. Unless the whole design uses only one font type for some specific reason, it’s wise to pick a second font, usually a much more simple and readable typeface, for the body.

3. Design for the medium, and make sure you understand font usage for each Designing for the web is a whole different beast than designing for print. If you are designing an infographic for a blog post, consider what kinds of web fonts will function best on screen. For instance, sturdy sans serif fonts usually work well.

3 Tips For Picking The Perfect Icons

Icons are one of those things that, although extremely valuable, are taken for granted. Icons can replace entire paragraphs, as they are easy to consume and understood worldwide.

1. Choose an icon style and stick to it Consistency is important. Whether you go with line icons, material design icons, or goofy icons, don’t change it halfway through your design.

2. Pair icons with fonts After you handpicked your icon style, it’s important to align it with the tone and color scheme of your infographic. If you design is monotone, pick a monotone set of icons. The same goes for pastel, bright or dark color schemes.

3. Match icons with the right color palette Make sure the icon set you choose is related to the topic, and universal. It should complement the motif of your infographic. If you are going for a fun, bright and comic-like, design, your icons should look fun, bright and comic-like.